lawson



(No Model.)

S. LAWSON. IGNITING DEVIGEFOR GAS ENGINES.

y No. 462,492.

Patented Nov. 3, 1891.

UNTTnn STATES PATENT OFFICE SAMUEL LAIVSON, OF NEWT YORK, N. Y., ASSIGNOR TO IIIMSELF AND ALONZO T. VELCH, OF SAME PLACE.

lGNITlNG DEVICE FOR GAS-ENGINES.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 462,492, dated November 3, 1891.

Application tiled Ianuary l2, 1891. Serial No. 377,426. (No model.)

To all whom il; may concern/.-

Be it known that I, SAMUEL LAWsoN, a citizen of the United States, residing in the city and State of New York, have invented an Improvement in Igniting Devices for Gas-Engines, of which the following is a specification.

In Letters Patent No. 402,751, granted to me, an engine is represented in which the air and gas are admitted, and there is a valve within a tubular case receiving its motion from a gear-wheel revolving once to every two revolutions of the engineshaft.

My present invention is represented as applied to an engine of this character.

Before my invention an igniting device for a gas-engine had been made of a tube passing across a space heated by a llame or Bun sen burner.

In my present invention I am enabled to adapt an ignitor of this general character to the engine described in the aforesaid patent.

In the drawings, Figure l is a. vertical section of the engine'cylinder and the valvecase. Fig. 2 is a horizontal plan at the line zr, and Fig. 3 is a section at the line 7/ y, Fig. 2.

The cylinder A is provided with a piston C, to which the rod D is connected, and II shows the case for the exhaust-valve, which is closed by a spring 7 and opened by a cam, as in aforesaid patent.

The port s extends to the valvc-case L, within which is a cylindrical plug l), forming thc valve, and this is moved by a rod I, extending to a crank-pin upon a wheel rotated once to every two revolutions of the main shaft of the engine, as lin my aforesaid patent; but the valve or plug l), instead of being hollow, as in the said. patent, is solid and provided with a notch or port at 2. The air is admitted by a pipe l5 and gas is admitted by the pipe I6 and valve 17, and this valve I7 is raised by a cam at the proper time upon the engine-shaft, and the parts are so timed that as the piston' C descends the air and gas are mixed in the tube or chamber 18 as they pass into the case L and by the port s into the engine-cylinder A. As the piston C rises, the air and gases in the upper part of the cylinder A are compressed, and the parts are timed, so that the notch 2 in the valve B comes opposite the port s and in line with the ignitor O at the time the crank on the engine-shaft and the piston C reach their upward movement, and at this moment the air and gasiunder pressure pass through this port s and notch 2 into the ignitor to be exploded, as next described. This ignitor O is in the form of a small tube bent at rightangles and secured at one end into a hole in the valve-case L, and such tube O stands vertically and is closed at the upper end. Around this tube O is a shield P to confine the Bunsen `llame, which is produced by gas passing out at the jet-tube 2O into the tube I and mixing with a large volume of air admitted at the holes 22. The supply of gas is regulated by the cock 23. By this means the tube O is raised to a high temperature by the expenditure of a small quantity of gas, and the te-mperature of said tube O is suiiicient to ignite the mixture of air and gas that passes from the cylinder A into such ignitor O, and the gases explode in the port s and cylinder A, driving the piston downwardly with a powerful force, due to the high pressure of the ignited gases.

In practice I find that the explosion of the air and gas and the movement of the piston produces a minus pressure or partial vacuum in theignitor O. llence when the notch 2 coincides with the port s, the gas under pressure passes into this ignitor O, compressing any vapors that may remain in the same sut'- ciently to bring the fresh supply of air and gas into contact with the hottest portion of the ignitor O; and it will be apparent that this ignitor O can be made of sufficient length to insure the proper contact of the fresh gases with the incandescent ignitor O to always insure the positive ignition of the gases 'in the ignitor, the port, and the cylinder, and only a small flame is needed to keep the ignitor at the proper temperature, because the heat is applied at the bend in the igniting-tube and the heated gases maintain the proper temperature of the upper part of the tube, and the fresh gases come directly into contact with the incandescent tube at the bend thereof, where the heat is most intense.

IOO

I claim as my nvension-l inderport to the ignitor, substantially as The combination, with the Cylinder and its specified. I( gort, of a Valve-ease parallel with the cylin- Signed by me this 6th day of January, 189k er and air and 0as inlet i es a, c lindrical 5 Valve, and mean for slidithe saline Within Y S' LAWSON' LheYvalve-case, a burner, amd an igniting-tube Witnesses: with lateral connection to the Valve-case, there GEO. T. PINCKNEY,

being a port in the valve to connect the cyl- WILLIAM G. MOTT. 

